Thursday, July 31, 2008

Media Center Launcher

I know there are various utilities to launch PowerDVD from Media Center; however, none of them quite did what I wanted so I wrote my own.

Media Center Launcher has three primary functions:

  1. It can launch any application from within Media Center

  2. It will monitor when the application exits and will restore Media Center to it's previous state

  3. It will monitor for the BACK remote command and will close the application if pressed



The application it launches is configurable via the ini file. By default it will run PowerDVD. Edit the INI file if you want it to open another application.

I've created a simple installer for it. It will register the application to be run when a Blu-ray or HD DVD is inserted and be listed under the Program Library. I noticed that I forgot to remove the dependency on .NET Framework 3.5 for the setup application, sorry.

13 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kane81 said...

Doh... I just created an app that does what yours does....

well I dont hide the mouse cursor or do autoplay... so guess that is next on my list.

I support multimonitor :P

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/330158.aspx

great minds think a like I guess...

BTW: Reason I created mine was I found the PowerDVD would not maximize properly - taskbar was visible in window 7.

Luis said...

Mikinho.

Great little app you created here; I’m really happy with this feature; no need to exit media center to launch my blu ray movies. Feature runs great with Media Center running on Windows 7.

Thanks,

Luis

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is awesome, thanks.

Although i do seem to be having a problem launching games from it... it seems to start... but maybe as it changes the resaultion on start up thinks that its closeing... and so shuts down the game.

i think thats what its doing... i know it's not crashing so.

anyway way to fix that?

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately the back feature is needed for all the navigation with external programs (Hulu, Boxee). How do I uninstall this app? I removed it by loading the installer again after installing it but seems to still be in the programs under 'Push-A-Button' and then 'EMUCenter'. Please help.

Outcome said...

Where is the ini file? What is the name of it?

-Thanks!

HÃ¥kon said...

Seems like the download links is down, is there another place I can get this app?

Anonymous said...

Is it compatible with XP Media Center 2005?

Anonymous said...

Links seem to be broken

Anonymous said...

Yes, the links do seem broken. Which is a shame, this app would serve me well. Anyone know of an alternate download or similar app?

Anonymous said...

The links are broken!

Aaron said...

Download links:

http://get.mikinho.com/old/setup-mcrun-x64.msi

http://get.mikinho.com/old/setup-mcrun-x86.msi

Anonymous said...

nice